All About Jivebeat

Jivebeat was founded in 2016 when all the usual venues where Graham had been dancing every week began to close. Rather than travel miles for an alternative (or stopping dancing!), he decided to put together his own version and - after months of planning and preparation - Jivebeat was born.

It was initially intended to be a Modern Jive club that followed the model of many other similar organisations, but after unexpectedly introducing argentine tango to the curriculum it became clear that Jivebeat Dance was something a little unique.

We are excited to see what's coming next!

Meet the Team

Graham

Owner - Teacher - DJ

After turning up to his first ever dance class when he was in his early 40s just to prove to himself that he couldn't dance (something that didn't go entirely according to plan!) and immediately getting hooked, Graham has worked his way around dance venues all over the country. He has been a teaching assistant, a taxi dancer working with the new arrivals to the clubs to make sure they don't feel out of their depth, and a demonstrator, before unexpectedly deciding in early 2016 to launch his own dance venture.

LeRoc Modern Jive

Graham began dancing Modern Jive at a Ceroc venue in Dartford back in 2007, but because of geography and working away from home (there's not much to do in a Travelodge in the evenings) he found himself dancing at plenty of other venues as well. He soon became a regular at Dance Yourself Dizzy, MoJive, MJ's, and many more, then after moving back to Kent he settled into a routine at Ceroc Bromley.

In early 2015 they made him a Taxi Dancer, and this convinced him that teaching dance was something that he really enjoyed doing, so when in 2016 he had the opportunity to train as a LeRoc teacher he jumped at the chance. Strangely this coincided with the closure of his main Ceroc venue, so with his newly obtained qualification, Graham decided to launch Jivebeat.

Since then, Graham has continued to develop his LeRoc dancing and teaching style, attending workshops where possible and continuing to learn from all available sources.

Argentine Tango

In 2009, Graham was persuaded to go along to his first Argentine Tango class at a place in Southampton, and although he found it very confusing at first he knew that he wanted to find out more. He carried on with that class whenever possible, found another class closer to where he was based in Basingstoke, and then on moving back into Kent he went hunting for classes in that area too. Since then he has attended classes in Canterbury, Keston, Dartford, and most recently Brighton as he came to find an unexpectedly close connection and understanding of the dance.

A somewhat unusual sequence of events resulted in him teaching an occasional tango class at one of the Jivebeat venues, and this became so popular he added it as a regular feature. Since then he has continued to attend classes himself, currently in Brighton, as he firmly believes that there is no such thing as "too much tango".

Everything Else

When not teaching dance, Graham is an engineer who designs and repairs things, a programmer and designer of websites and other graphic-intensive subjects (including this website), he writes books (crime and sci-fi so far) and occasionally hosts writing workshops and gives lectures at literary festivals. He is also a photographer of events, landscapes, and various art projects.

Nathalie

Demo - Teaching Assistant - Creative Support

First introduced to Jivebeat when Graham had this crazy idea about training as a LeRoc instructor and was looking for a demo to help him out, Nathalie has been with Jivebeat since before it even existed. She helped Graham develop the original Jivebeat dance curriculum, and has been a part of everything Jivebeat has done since.

Nathalie is a demonstrator and teaching assistant at all of our regular venues and most of the special events, manages front-of-house and the refreshments "tuck shop", and has appeared in most of the Jivebeat Mini and Class Demonstration videos on our YouTube channel.